caves
Koi ponds can be watershapes of great beauty in which sizeable populations of large, gorgeous fish thrive through the long lives these creatures often experience. With the pond that appears at the start of the video linked below, however, there were key features that were missing from the existing pond that put the big fish at risk in a number of ways. I don't know the full history of the pond, but it's clear it
Last month, we began our discussion of a large pond, stream and waterfall system for a historic upper Midwest estate found on the forested shore of a scenic lake. As related there, the project was to include three major ponds and a series of complex waterfall structures connected by streams rising close to the top of the gently sloping property. To sum up, the space we were working with measured approximately 300 feet wide and 800 feet long – a large section of a 35-acre estate marked by scores of mature trees that largely governed the watershapes’ configurations. Moreover, as there were no natural rock formations or outcroppings on site, we faced the need to
It all started in 2002, when I was contacted by an architect who’d been retained to design a recreational complex for a huge estate in a wealthy Chicago suburb. I knew at the time that this would be big, but in those early days I had no clear idea exactly what it would ultimately entail. It’s a familiar story: Before the call came in, the homeowner had spoken with a number of pool-contracting firms in the area and had visited a number of projects that failed to impress her. The unusual thing is, at the time she called I was focused exclusively on pursuing large-scale commercial projects and waterparks and didn’t see anything even approaching a
The Shenandoah Valley of western Virginia is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. The site to which we were summoned in January 2004 - a 220-acre estate set amidst its rolling hills - confirmed that opinion in every possible way by offering incredible views of nearby valleys, forests, farmland and mountains. We'd been called to take over a grand-scale swimming-pool project, one as outsized as the property with respect to scope and complexity - and one that required constant, detailed interaction with
